


Sand Angel

by in_a_pickle



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: 62AD, Crowley loves Aziraphale, Happy Ending, M/M, Oblivious Aziraphale, One Shot, Snektember
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:55:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26523286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/in_a_pickle/pseuds/in_a_pickle
Summary: Aziraphale could never make his mind up if Crowley liked him or was just biding his time until his back was turned before he struck.
Relationships: Crowley - Relationship, aziraphale - Relationship
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	Sand Angel

**Author's Note:**

> This fic comes with a warning for partial sand burial (not the family sort on the beach). It all turns out well in the end though.

**Italy 62AD (not long after the ‘Oysters’ incident)**

Aziraphale shouldn’t believe in bad luck, or even good luck come to mention it.

God and luck were like chalk and cheese, orange juice and toothpaste, bathtubs and toasters.

They just didn’t go together.

However today Aziraphale was feeling just a little bit down (on his _not_ luck).

He couldn’t put it down solely to the midday sun that was beating relentlessly on his fair skin. Nor the irritating bead of sweat that had rolled down his forehead and into the corner of his eye stinging it with the salt. Or even the large predatory bird that was circling lazily over his head in the blue sky.

The accumulation of these three factors was miserable enough but the final kick in the pants for our angel was the uncomfortable business of being buried up to his neck in the sand and left to . . . well, fate was currently considering his options.

Aziraphale was feeling that today was not his lucky day.

Heaven had failed to answer his ‘get me out of here’ prayer (he tried not to think too much in to that) but he still refused to panic . . . . . because there was one last . . . . someone.

Crowley.

Aziraphale dithered.

Whilst their last meeting (over oysters) had been on the whole rather more sociable than previous encounters Crowley was still fundamentally a huge demonic snake. And he didn’t think it was a significant overreaction to consider himself, at present, a bit of a sitting duck.

Aziraphale could never make his mind up if Crowley liked him or was just biding his time until his back was turned before he struck.

Still, anything was preferable to having your eyes pecked out by a giant eagle.

He steeled himself, bought Crowley to mind and shot off the equivalent of an ethereal distress flare.  
  


*****

Crowley was currently deeply engaged in his latest temptation when he felt Aziraphale’s very urgent ‘finger-whistle’ for attention.

“Damn it angel,” he groaned, “impeccable timing as ever.”

Crowley dropped who he was doing and allowed his body to dissolve and follow the bright blue thread of anxious energy that twisted through the ether.

*****

The demon found himself on the edge of a desert area behind a small group of olive trees and he looked around for signs of an angel-in-distress. None were obviously forthcoming but whilst his eyesight was weak he could feel him here, the pulse of Aziraphale’s jittery energy was unmistakable.

Crowley sank to the sandy ground and transformed into his snake form allowing his heightened oral senses to take over the detective work. He reached out with his tongue to taste the air, it was subtle but the angel was definitely close, that familiar flavour of goodness and catastrophe that rolled off him in waves was unmistakable.

He slid his head around in the direction of the scent and found him, well a bit of him anyway, he’d recognise those white curls anywhere, even poking up out of the desert floor. He shook his snakey head fondly, what on this Earth had he got himself in to this time.

*****

“Up to your neck in it again I sssseee.” A black serpentine head slowly slid into Aziraphale’s peripheral vision.

“Oh very droll Crowley,” he snapped, though he was silently singing with gratitude at the demon’s timely arrival. Not that he was going to let on.

He watched the snake slowly slide past his face and disappear out of sight.

“You’re in a bad mood, you could sound a little more grateful sssince I came all this way to rescue you.” The words were hissed from somewhere behind him, Aziraphale wondered if he already had his fangs out ready to strike.

“I do not need rescuing, I am just temporarily inconvenienced until I can work out how to free myself, it won’t take a moment I assure you.”

“I’ve been watching you sssince breakfast time, you haven’t got very far.” It whispered in his ear.

“Oh.”

“I thought you might be enjoying yourself,” The snake slithered forward and looked at the angel with amused large yellow eyes, “you know, taking part in some sort of religious meditation workshop.”

“And you thought you’d wait until now to check?”

“I am your enemy,” it pointed out, “it could have been a trap.”

Aziraphale huffed in irritation, either at himself or at Crowley, he couldn’t decide who deserved it more. He felt utterly ridiculous and completely defenceless and if Crowley decided now was a good time to bite his head off, then he deserved every damn form he would have to fill in to get a new one.

“Well, now as you’re here, can you please make yourself useful and remove a particular ticklish insect that has made a home in my left ear.” He huffed.

Now Crowley was a big believer in luck and for him Lady Luck had just arrived on a shooting star and showered him with four-leaf clovers.

A shiver of delight rippled down his scales at Aziraphale’s words. Aziraphale had invited him to touch him. Well, Aziraphale had sort of invited him to touch him. Okay, it wasn’t much of a touch but it was far more than he’d ever been offered before and by Hell he was going to take full advantage of the situation.

Crowley had waited for this moment since, well let’s face it, pretty much since the world had burst in to life.

“Hmmmmmm,” he murmured,”let me take a look.”

Crowley slid around and positioned himself near Aziraphale’s left ear and expertly flicked out the intruder using the tip of his forked tongue. Then, making the most of this gifted opportunity he reached out and ran his tongue over and around the sensitive folds of skin that undulated within the angel’s inner shell. He nuzzled down around the sensitive lobe flicking his forks over the tiny hairs he found there before licking gently up and over the ear’s outside shell.

He withdrew with a soft hiss of approval.

“Finally got the bugger,” he whispered, “he was tricky to catch.”

“Thank you,” the said angel and gave him a sideways look that conveyed as much suspicion as it did gratitude.

“How did you end up in a hole in the ground anyway?” Crowley felt he had to ask.

“I’m afraid my latest assignment rather backfired when I was discovered by a roman patrol harbouring a family of Christians.” He sighed. “This apparently is a merciful death for a man of my station.”

“But why can’t you just (he flexed his midsection), you know, miracle out of it.” There were some serious physical limitations to expressing yourself in snake form but Crowley was going to give it a shot.

“Unlike the vulgar way you snap up your Hellish tricks, Heaven prefers a more dignified approach.” He did a little underground wiggle trying to demonstrate his miracle inducing flourish. “Unfortunately as my arms are bound tightly to my sides I can’t move them enough to summon the required power, so I am a little . . . stuck.”

“And I assume they haven’t been much help?” Crowley gestured his snout upwards.

“You got here first.” The angel said stubbornly.

“You know as well as I do they’re not going to come.”

Aziraphale did know that but refused accept it.

But Crowley had come. Straight away. It was almost as if he cared.

Ridiculous thought.

“They would have come, eventually.” The angel pouted.

“You would have discorporated first. Come on Aziraphale, you’ve got to ssstop burying your head in the sand about them.”

“You’re really not funny.”

“Look, do you want to get out of that hole or not? I was in the middle of sssomething.”

As much as Aziraphale hated to ask the other side for help he really was very fed up now and his tummy had been rumbling since yesterday tea time.

“I suppose some immediate help would be welcome.”

“And what do I get out of it in return? I’m a demon, I can’t be seen to be helping angels too readily, I have to draw a line in the sand sssomewhere.”

Crowley tangled himself up trying to disguise a laugh.

“Well I’m glad you’re finding this all so amusing.” Aziraphale grumbled. “Just get me out and we’ll talk terms.”

“I can’t just miracle you out I’m sssupposed to be in Greece. They’ll know.”

“Fine,” Aziraphale sighed, “If my bonds could be just be severed then I could manage quite well from there, thank you.”

The snake smiled and revealed a pair of long white fangs, “I’ll just sharpen them up a bit, should do the job.”

“Well hurry up about it then, I can’t wait around here all day.”

Crowley sniggered and went to bury his snout in the sand.

“And Crowley . . ”

“Yessss?”

“Behave yourself down there.”

The snake gave him a sly smile a wriggled in a downward motion until the top half of his body disappeared into the sand. Aziraphale felt a coil of scales slide over and around his chest and travel downwards to where his bonds held his arms tightly to his body, in a matter of seconds the ropes loosened and he managed to wriggle one arm out up into the open. He suddenly gave a yelp and with the other dived into the sand and extracted a diamond shaped head by the neck , he held it up to his face and glared in its eyes accusingly.

“Sorry,” said the serpent innocently, “it was a bit dark.”

With a flourish of his free hand Aziraphale miracled himself free from his sandy prison and stood there resplendent and beautiful dressed in a simple white tunic and leather sandals. Every intrusive grain of sand, bug and twig returned from whence it came.

Aziraphale stomped off towards the olive trees and the welcome shade where Crowley had appeared earlier. He sat down with his back to a tree to collect himself and summoned up an amphora of cool wine.

The demon slithered across to join him and rested his head upon a blonde haired knee, Aziraphale looked down at him.

“Well I suppose I’m now in your debt, so what do you want as your reward you Hellish fiend?”

It was going to be hundreds of years before Crowley knew what he really wanted, and a hundred more to pluck up the courage to ask for it. Eventually Crowley would realise the only reward he wanted in his life was the angel himself, each innocent, cantankerous, ridiculous inch of him.

That Aziraphale would be his one day, if he was lucky.

But for now he slid his head over his knee and curled up in a tight spiral in his lap, every surface of his snakey body blissfully in contact with the angel.

He relaxed his coils as Aziraphale tentatively ran a warm hand along his cool scaley skin.

“Thisss,” he hissed, “is perfect.”


End file.
